Maroon 5’s James Valentine On Not Watching The Voice

While he admits he had no desire to watch the first season of The Voice, Maroon 5 guitarist James Valentine is thankful for his bandmate’s working relationship with Christina Aguilera which led to their collaboration on “Moves Like Jagger.”

“Working with Christina was great. We had this section in the middle that we knew would be good for a feature for somebody else to come in and sing,” Valentine said. “She was a natural choice because she was just a few feet away from Adam on The Voice and she nailed it.”

Though Maroon 5 only performed the song once with Christina, Valentine was impressed.

“She’s got such an amazing voice,” he said. “Just hearing her voice coming through my monitor speakers was insane. It’s truly a classic. We were lucky to have her on there.”

Aguilera and Maroon 5 debuted the song during a performance on the first season of The Voice. While Valentine confessed he hadn’t watched the show before, he had good reason.

“I spend so much time with Adam and so much of my life is listening to Adam’s opinions on things that I didn’t need to tune in to hear that for entertainment. That seemed more like my daily life,” he said.

But by season two he caught onto the craze.

“I happened to be in my hotel room when season two debuted and I watched the first episode and I was hooked right away. I was like, ‘Oh, okay I get it. I get why people love this show.'”

And his take on his bandmate’s opinions?

“It was cool to see Adam on it. He comes off great on the show and it really highlights the best aspects of his personality and it really comes through on the show,” he added.

So who was his favorite artist this season?

“I was pulling for Tony Lucca from that very first episode. I thought he could go all the way. I was a little bummed that he didn’t win. But of course I’m happy for Jermaine,” he said. “That’s the thing about the show too, everyone . . . even if you get to the auditions, the level of talent is already really high. Everybody who makes it to the end, they all deserve to win.”